By Mike W. Ray
Southwest Ledger
LAWTON – The City Council agreed to a future adjustment of the interest rate on a multimillion-dollar loan previously authorized for various public improvement projects, including the new aquatic center and the pedestrian bridge under construction over Interstate 44 at East Gore Boulevard.
The council on Aug. 13 authorized the Lawton Industrial Development Authority to issue a $40 million loan to ensure “timely implementation” of PROPEL capital improvement projects. City officials initially contemplated a fixed interest rate with a 10-year maturity.
However, because of market conditions, “the purchaser of the note has expressed the need to reset the interest rate at five years … in order to hold the paper,” City Manager John Ratliff reported. The new interest rate will be 5.5% to 10.5%, the council was told.
The council approved the loan term modification on Sept. 10.
LIDA will issue notes in one or more series that will be repaid with revenue generated from PROPEL 2019, a 15-year capital improvements program backed by a 2.125% sales tax. The entire debt must be retired by the end of 2034, when that CIP expires, Mayor Stan Booker told Southwest Ledger. Some, but not all, of the bonds will be tax-exempt.
Projects that will be financed in whole or in part from LIDA’s $40 million in notes include:
• Construction of the Aquatic Center in Elmer Thomas Park: $19,495,000.
• Youth Sports Complex: $700,000. Those funds “will be used for the design work” on the indoor sports facility, which will be built south of MacArthur High School near the corner of East Gore Boulevard and Southeast 45th Street, said Caitlin Gatlin, the city’s communications manager.
• Pedestrian bridge spanning Interstate 44 at Gore Boulevard: $50,000. Those funds will pay a small bit of the $2,415,000 contract awarded to Haskell Lemon Group. Construction on that project started in July and is projected to be completed by the end of next January, weather permitting. The work will include installation of sidewalks and pedestrian push buttons at street crossings on Gore Boulevard. Push buttons will be installed on the sidewalk crossing the I-44 entry ramp to I-44 westbound (running south) and the I-44 exit ramp from I-44 eastbound (running north). The project extends from approximately 200 feet west of Seventh Street and continues east to Southeast Interstate Drive.
• Resurfacing Lee Boulevard (initially from 38th Street to 67th Street, according to City Councilman George Gill): $4 million.
• U.S. Highway 62 interchange (at Goodyear Boulevard): $5.5 million.
• Replacement of deteriorated water and sewer lines: $3 million.
• Cache Road waterline replacement: $1.4 million.
• Lawton Area Transit System transportation improvements: $2.5 million.
• Lakes gates operation: $355,000. Gatlin said. “Basically, this will be a study and report on the gate operational policies and structural analysis of the dam gates at Lakes Ellsworth and Lawtonka,” Gatlin said. “This is an engineered hydraulic analysis that will be submitted to the Oklahoma Water Resources Board for review. We have to do this periodically to ensure dam safety and minimize downstream flooding.”
• Improvements at Lake Lawtonka and Lake Ellsworth: $3 million. Lakes Supt. Jim Bonnarens told the council those projects include repair or replace the roof and ceiling at Ralph’s Resort at Ellsworth, $70,000; replace approximately 40 four-yard front-load trash dumpsters, $30,000; demolish the east campground restroom and showers at Lake Lawtonka and install a precast restroom/shower facility that also could serve as a severe weather storm shelter, $450,000; construct a new 20-unit dry stall storage facility at Robinson’s Landing at Lake Lawtonka, and a new dry stall at Ralph’s Resort at Lake Ellsworth to replace a unit that was “decimated in a storm a few years ago,” $360,000; pave the parking area at Lake Lawtonka’s School House Slough in concrete, $650,000; improve the roads in the School House Slough campground area, $1.25 million; and install sewage lift stations at Robinson’s Landing and at School House Slough, $200,000.
Bonnarens said 33 trailers at School House Slough campsites use on-ground sewer tanks authorized by the state Department of Environmental Quality. “A lift station would allow those to be sewered and get rid of the tanks because of their potential for contamination,” he said.
The headquarters building at Lawtonka on the east side of state Highway 58 is expected to be demolished, and so is the old store at Robinson Landing, Councilman Randy Warren said. The store at Ralph’s Resort will be repaired by the City of Lawton “in hopes of bringing it back to functioning order in the future,” Gatlin said.